A tech blog for the people. Here I ramble on about various experiences I've had with technology in an attempt to save the reader from stumbling through the tech world blindly as I do.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

This page is incompatible with Internet Explorer....

If you are still using Internet
Explorer to browse the internet from your PC, you might still be accessing the
web via dial-up.Seriously, IE has been
left behind by other web browsers as far as features and performance are
concerned.It is still the most popular
browser on the web (most likely because it comes with Windows as the default
internet browser) but its market share is slipping as time goes by.Other browsers simply have more features, are faster, and are even able to display certain web pages better. There are many alternatives to IE, but which
one is the best for you?The other major
players in this game are Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Maxthon.(Apple’s safari browser is no longer being
supported for Windows).

Back in the days of dial-up, I was
blown away by how much faster the Opera browser made my web experience than
using IE 6.Ever since the advent of broadband,
I have been using Firefox.Last year I
switched to Google’s chrome, and I have to admit, it is a great browser.The sign-in feature syncs your browser across
all the different devices you access the web from.Tom’s Hardware rated Chrome first place, with
Firefox in second, in their March WebBrowser Grand Prix.So why did I
switch back to Firefox?

For me it came down to a few
factors.First, I have doubts about
Google’s respect for my privacy.Although I am a GMail user, I have been trying to find a way to wean
myself from Google for a while now; more on that later.Chrome’s Do
Not Track privacy feature is hard to find and disable -no thank you.Second, maybe it’s just human nature to cheer
for the underdog, but I would rather support the not-for-profit Mozilla
foundation than the huge multibillion dollar Google Corp.Mozilla seems like one of the last bastions
of the early days of computing, the web, and software, when information was
supposed to be free, shared, and collaborated on.To be fair, Chrome is open source.Finally, while Firefox’s sync takes a little
more time to set up, it is more secure than Chrome’s and works just as well.

So, while Chrome does technically
finish first in performance, Firefox is a close second.As far as the other browsers are concerned,
Opera’s performance has been subpar for the last several releases.Maxthon is another interesting choice, but it
lacks hardware acceleration.One place I
do use the Maxthon browser is on my android phone.In the Tom’s Hardware review on browsers forAndroid devices, Maxthon finished second to Dolphin Browser, but in the speed
tests, beat out Dolphin.Finally, if you
are using an iOS device, according to THW, the best browser is the default
Safari.This is due in part to apple’s
requirement that any browser made for iOS must run on Webkit. (Webkit is what
Safari and Chrome are based on).

The performance gap between all of
these choices seems to be closing, and each one offers different
advantages.My recommendation is
obviously Firefox, but try the different choices for yourself.If you have never used anything but Internet
Explorer, you’re in for a treat.Check
out PCMag’s browser review for additional information.
Finally I will leave you with some of my favorite Firefox add-ons:
-Flash Video Downloader - YouTube Downloader
-GMail Notifier
-Integrated Google Calendar
-RoboForm Lite